The story of the Taino Indians of Cuba

The Great Dying

Santa Maria, 1492

Following the fateful arrival of Columbus in Cuba in 1492 and its subsequent
occupation between 1494 and 1513 by Spanish conquistadors, both the island
and its Taino - Arawak Indian peoples' idyllic world were irrevocably
shattered. Yet, Columbus' first landings in Cuba and the West Indies carried
no dark portent for the Indians, only the high magic of miraculous advent.
His very presence: "The fair skin, the look of command, the glistening
armour, the manly beard, the death-dealing carbine, all rendered Columbus
supernatural divinity and power in their eyes." (Christopher Columbus
by Emilio Castelar. 1892)

Of all Columbus' 'discoveries', Cuba stirred in him the deepest, most
affecting emotions. He wrote in rapturous terms of "its streams strewn
with the showered petals of the myriad flowers that festooned their banks,
the beautiful mountain ranges that stretched not far but rose to lofty
heights. The cool and aromatic groves, the yams that tasted like sweet
chestnuts, the brightly plumaged birds and the inexhaustible aloes."
Such enchantments led him to pronounce Cuba the "most beautiful land
that eyes ever beheld."
(Christopher Columbus by Emilio Castelar. 1892)

Equally alluring to Columbus were the Taino-Arawak Indians he met during
his island hoppings of the West Indies. His journals record their "Naked
innocence and quick response to the influences of kindness rather than
acts of force... Their hair, thick as a horse's mane, falls in long locks
upon their shoulders. They are shapely of body and handsome of face. So
ignorant of arms are they that they grasp swords by the blade! They are
very gentle, without knowing what evil is, without killing, without stealing."

Even so, Columbus' rainbow rhapsody of Eden-like islands and their peaceful,
welcoming inhabitants could not last. It was eventually pierced by his
reminder to himself that the goal was not to write lyrical poems but to
find gold. Gold would be glittering evidence back home in Spain of his
discoveries and earn him both immortal fame and earthly riches.

Spurred on by greed as much as hope, Columbus left Cuba and sailed eastwards.
He duly landed on Haiti where, to his disappointment, he found no great
caches of gold, only small trinkets worn by the Indians. These, without
conscience, he took from his innocents, along with a whole New World for
Spain. In return he gave them worthless glass beads!

Enthused by his meretriciousness, Columbus mentally performed a volte-face.
Writing to their Spanish majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella, he boasted
that he could supply them with "slaves, as many of these idolatrous
Indians as your highnesses can command to be shipped, along with as much
gold as you need. Gold is most excellent. Gold is treasure and he who
possesses it does all he wishes to do in this world."

Columbus failed to deliver on his boast and earned not personal fortune
but only fame; even the latter is considered today as more synonymous
with infamy! But his avaricious exaltation of the pursuit of gold was
the irresistible, resounding clarion call to his fellow Spaniards to invade
the Americas. They did so with zeal and alacrity and set in motion a holocaust
of horror and death for the Native peoples, a holocaust that is epitomised
in the story of Hatuey and the conquest and colonisation of Cuba.
In 1511 the Spaniard, Diego Velasquez, sailed from Hispaniola to
Cuba. On landing he was resisted by Taino Indians under a chieftain, Hatuey,
already a witness to Diego's atrocities elsewhere. For some time, they
valiantly defended the island, skillfully making sudden attacks on the
Spaniards and then retreating to the hills. Eventually, however, Spanish
military power overwhelmed them. Defeated, they were subjected to barbarous
tortures.

Hatuey was sentenced by the Spanish Crown to a public death and
was burned alive at the stake. The Spanish priest, Bartolomé de la
Casa, recorded the words of the chieftain to his people: "These
tyrants tell us they adore a God of peace and equality, yet they usurp
our land and enslave us. They speak of an immortal soul and of eternal
rewards and punishments. They rob us, seduce our women and violate our
daughters. Unable to match us in valour, these cowards cover themselves
in iron that our spears cannot pierce."

Bartolomé de la Casa also described the fate of the Tainos. "A
village of around 2500 was wiped out. They (the Spaniards) set upon the
Indians, slashing, disembowelling and slaughtering them until their blood
ran like a river. And of those Tainos they kept alive they sent to the
mines, harnessing them to loads they could scarcely drag and with fiendish
sport and mockery hacking off their hands and feet and mutilating them
in ways that will not bear description."

Today, Hatuey is still regarded as the first martyr in the struggle
for Cuban independence. For the Tainos of Eastern Cuba he remains an integral
part of their oral tradition and each year a pilgrimage is still made
by them to the site of his horrific death.

By 1527, Spanish control of the Greater Antilles* was complete and some
ten million Taino-Arawak Indians had perished. The few survivors, in their
infinite grief, spoke of The Great Dying of their peoples.
They did not know then that the dying would go on and on as the Spaniards
and rival Europeans, still lusting after conquest and gold, swept like
a demon plague through Middle and South America. As the year 1600 dawned
the holocaust had engulfed a further 95 million Indians. (*Cuba, Hispaniola,
Jamaica and Puerto Rico).

Today, there are 40 million Indians in the Americas. In many ways they
still struggle against suppression, racism, and subtler forms of genocide
and assimilation. But now they are strong of will and purpose and are
experiencing powerful ethnic resurgence. Rigoberta Menchu* in a foreword
to Phillip Wearne's marvellous book, Return of the Indian, 1996.
writes: "We are moving into the light of a new era. After so many
years of waiting for a new dawn we believe that our voices will make themselves
heard, that you will listen to us and support our legitimate aspirations."
(*Rigoberta Menchu: Mayan Indian and Nobel Prize winner of 1992).

We are still here

For five hundred years, historians asserted that the Caribbean Taino-Arawak
Indians were wholly extinct, victims of Spanish conquest. Today, it is
known that thousands of Taino descendants are alive and well, not only
in Cuba but in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Florida, New York, California,
Hawaii and even Spain.

Since 1997 Taino Indians have been reunited annually with their relatives
of the diaspora at a conference held in Baracoa, Cuba's First City. For
Panchito Ramirez, healer, herbalist and Taino cacique (chief) of Caridad
de los Indios, a Cuban mountain village, the reunion is ongoing answer
to his many prayers. "It is as if our ancestors are now sending their
children back to us, for we now know we are not the last of our kind and
are not alone."

The conferences have opened up to the world the reality of Taino continued
existence, their invaluable contributions to the fabric of Cuban society,
and in 2001 brought together the largest contingent yet of Native representatives,
scholars, medical professionals and journalists. On the last day of the
conference, Cuban government officials gave the gathering the welcome
and ringing assurance that "Cuba fully supports and will not allow
any harm to come to its Indian Peoples."

Taino Indian Bohio - thatched dwelling

Caridad de los Indios is so remote from mainstream Cuban modernity
that Ramirez and his 350 Indian villagers live today as simply as did
their ancestors, keeping deep resonance with their ancient customs and
spiritual lifeways. "Our Taino homes," says Ramirez, "are
traditional bohios, huts with thatched roofs, set amidst Conuco's,
our permaculture* raised-bed gardens. The Conuco's are our ample
'grocery store' and provide us with most of our fruits and vegetables."
(*The contraction of 'permanent agriculture')

The Taino intuitive at-oneness with all of Nature is still being manifestly
expressed, healthwise, by the richly enduring benefit they reap from the
harvesting of plants from their lush valleys and forested mountains. Their
unbroken practice of extracting efficacious herbal medicines now attracts
global interest and is a constant theme for conference discussion.

Indeed, Taino 'green medicine' as it is known is greatly valued by the
Cuban government which promotes its wide use as an alternative to pharmaceutical
medicine. Cuban children in elementary schools are trained in herbal remedies
which they can prepare at home as poultices, tinctures, salves and teas.
And local gardens, even in cities, are almost all organic and stocked
with natural medicine plants.

As an extension to the 2001 conference, Panchito Ramirez and his daughter
Reina* offered delegates a tour of a 'healing forest' on an island in
Cuba's Toa River. Vigilantly conserved and protected, the sacred forest
is a cornucopia of hundreds of medicinal plants. Delegates agreed that
it was a highlight of an already unforgettable conference and reunion.
Before their leave-taking, Reina asked the delegates to carry a message
home to Native women in the North to remind them "that we are all
related. Tell them that the women here in Caridad send greetings to our
sister-mothers in the North Americas and other lands. Tell them to keep
their traditions. We wish for them healthy children." (*Panchito's
helper in healing ceremonies.)

Daniel Wakonax Rivera, a Taino Indian from Brooklyn, New York, wistfully
recalled how six days into his visit he found what he was longing for.
"When we climbed over that last ridge in the mountains and I heard
the drums and the songs of our people welcoming us I was overwhelmed with
emotion." With tears in his eyes, he added: "It was like coming
home." Echoing Daniel, Inarunikia Pastrana, a Taino Indian nurse,
said, "Our ancestors fought for survival and thanks to their tenacity
the resurgence and restoration of the Taino people are a reality. Our
language is heard again, our songs are sung again. Against all odds we
have defeated extinction and continue to rescue our ancestral heritage
and culture."